How Living Feels
by vox.ex
Summary: Chapter 4 - Kara remembers the first promise she and Alex made each other. A series of one-shots that will explore the way Kara deals in the world around and all her different senses and emotions.
1. Learning to Feel

So I was writing some random stuff while trying to figure out another story and this kind of just happened so I figured I'd share it with you all rather than let it just sit and collect dust on my hard drive.

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The first time Kara loses her powers is not in a crowded city.

She doesn't watch a man die.

She doesn't have a gun pointed at her.

She doesn't save anyone.

The first time Kara loses her powers she is alone.

She is alone, and everything she's ever known is gone.

And everyone she's ever loved is gone.

And the world is too loud, and the sky is too bright, and it is all just too much.

So she runs.

She runs until she is as alone as she feels, until the world around her is no longer a blur, until time slows down again, until the first drops of rain hit her skin.

And it's there, standing in the middle of an empty forest with her arms open and her head tilted to a sky full of unfamiliar stars, Kara finally manages to feel something again.

Because all at once there had been nothing. Nothing but the quiet vacant blackness and the ghosts she carried with her. And then all at once there had been everything. A new world, a new language, an overwhelming cacophony of sounds and sensations so immense that they were indistinguishable from each other.

And so she tries to memorize all the things she has seen but never felt before.

The steady rhythm of the water, the impossible lightness of the cool air.

She lies down on the wet ground and lets the damp earth seep into her clothes as she runs her fingers through the pitch-black soil.

She listens for every sound she can hear and names every color she can see.

She thinks of how she would explain them if she could to the people she will never see again.

She wonders which flowers would be her mother's favorite and what names her father would give the constellations.

She falls asleep cold and tired and shivering but for the first time she dreams something other than the image of her planet's destruction and for the first time she wakes up to something other than the memory of miles of empty space.

And when Jeremiah finds her in the morning she finds that she is still trying to memorize everything she can.

The rough callouses of his hands, the cadence of his steps.

She listens to the quiet music playing in the background as they drive and lets her fingers tap out the still unfamiliar rhythms against her leg.

She feels the steadily growing warmth on her arms as the sun rises and the rush of wind that lifts her hand as it sticks out the window.

She doesn't want it to end. She doesn't want to give up this calm for the chaos she has known since coming here.

But it does.

The sounds start to fade into one and other. The world again moves in and out of focus. Everything she touches becomes harder to feel. But before it's all gone, she lets Eliza hold her and lets Jeremiah kiss her forehead and she finally feels what it is to be comforted again — to be anything but alone again.

The first time Kara loses her powers is not in a crowded city.

She is no one's hero.

She isn't even anyone's daughter anymore.

The first time Kara loses her powers she doesn't even know it.

It's only now, a new lifetime of firsts later, that she understands what had happened that day, but she is still thankful that it did. Because Kara knows there are things she will never be able to feel again, see again, hear again. Her father's touch, her mother's laugh, even Rao's light is gone now. And she knows nothing on Earth can replace these things or take them from her, but because of that day, she knows what the rain feels like, she remembers the feeling of Jerimiah's hand in hers, she remembers how soft Eliza's sweater was, and from those things she slowly started to build a home for herself.

The second time Kara loses her powers she is still scared but she is no longer alone.

And this time she cries not for a home she has lost, but for one she is not sure she can protect.

And this time the quiet is no longer a comfort.

But still she tries to remember.

And despite the pain and fear and the feelings she wishes she could forget, she finds that she can still be grateful.

Because for the first time she holds Alex as hard as she can. Holds onto her until she memorizes the feeling, until she is sure she will never forget it, until the tears run down her cheeks.

Because she finally knows what it feels like to hug her sister.

Because now in the moments that she is desperate for someone strong enough to hold her she will always be able to remember the weight of Alex's arms around her.

And that is enough to make her always try to remember. To accept the strength she has to feel again. Even when the world is too loud, even when it is too quiet, and especially when she is powerless against it. Because whether out of the dust of one planet or the rubble of another she knows that there will always be something worth feeling — some small piece of love or comfort worth every other bit of pain and darkness

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So that's the first one. The others will focus on specific sensations/emotions that Kara experiences. Let me know what you think...comments, feedback, and ideas, all appreciated.


	2. The Way We Heal

Summary: Kara and Lena discover the beauty of their scars and learn that sometimes a simple touch is enough.

A/N: Thanks to everybody for giving these stories a chance and for all the feedback and follows. This is something a little new for me and I hope you all enjoy reading them.

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Kara wakes to the warmth of sunlight and the weight of Lena's arms around her as they lie tangled together in the pale morning haze that leaks through the window. It's a feeling no longer unfamiliar, but still she finds herself memorizing every detail of it. Because for so long she had wanted to let herself be held by Lena this way and she knows how easily she could have never have known it at all — is reminded how easily she could never feel it again.

She grounds herself in the rhythmic motion of Lena's breathing, her chest rising and falling against her back. She lets herself relax into the feeling, into the gentle touch of fingers tracing along her side and around the margins of the skin still healing there.

She can still feel the heat of the explosion, still smell the sulfur in the air as she wrapped her body around Lena's.

She remembers the distant sound of her sister's voice as she looked up at the green embers that fell against the darkened sky. Remembers the feeling of Lena's hands, the desperate pull and distant pain as they worked to remove the shard of kryptonite from her side.

She looks at Lena's hands now, held against her skin with a different kind of desperation, no longer trembling, no longer stained with blood.

She had long since memorized the feeling of Lena's touch, but it was different like this, the barrier of her imperviousness gone. She could feel the calloused skin of her fingers, could feel the warmth left behind as they moved back and forth. She wondered what Lena felt when she held her like this. If it felt as safe, as comforting. Because her own hands had always felt clumsy and awkward, restrained by their need to be careful, but she hoped they were capable of making Lena feel this loved.

Kara shifts slightly, her body finally protesting her stillness as it tries to alleviate the pain of broken ribs and weakened muscles. She carefully turns in Lena's arms and lies on her back, blue eyes meeting green in the growing light for the first time, letting out a deep breath as Lena settles against her once more, head resting on her chest and hands warm on her skin where her shirt had ridden up.

They stayed like that, silence persisting as they held each other until Lena's voice breaks them both from their reverie.

"It won't scar."

Kara looks down to where Lena's fingers had stilled over the carefully stitched wound on her rib cage, the feeling there still dulled in a way the rest of her body wasn't.

But there isn't any sense of awe in Lena's words, no doubt, just quiet contemplation.

"No, it won't."

Kara thinks of the scar on her forehead, the only physical reminder she has of the past she left behind and the home she had lost. She thinks how her body bears no other proof of her pain. Thinks how it will not let her remember this pain either.

"But sometimes I wish it would. Sometimes I wish I could look at my body and see the reminder of how strong it is, how much it has endured, what it is capable of surviving. Because some days it is too easy to forget."

She lets her fingers trail along the set of scars on Lena's shoulder, the remnants of another close call, another explosion that had littered her skin with shrapnel and left her with the permanent reminder of her Brother's betrayal.

Up close like this, it was impossible to see Lena as the rest of the world did — cold, hard, unbreakable. And a part of Kara wished that they could see her like she does, but Lena did not owe the world her pain. It did not deserve it.

"Is that what you see when you look at me?"

Lena's words are hesitant and quiet, muffled by the fabric of Kara's shirt.

She sits up slightly cupping Lena's face gently, her chin lifting so their eyes meet again, and then she takes one of her hands in her own.

"I look at you and I see all the things you've fought for."

She lets her thumb run over her knuckles, the fractures long since healed, but the reminder of them still there.

"I see all the things you've fought against."

Kara pushes Lena's hair away from her face revealing the small scar above her eyebrow.

"And I see all the ways you are even more beautiful for having survived."

She turns Lena's palm over, and she places a kiss over skin that will soon bare a scar of its own.

"But mostly I see them and I feel thankful. Thankful that you are here, that you are strong enough for the things I can't protect you from, that you are strong enough to love me."

And then like every other touch that she had let prove the evidence of her words, Kara places a hand over Lena's heart, closing her eyes to imagine the familiar sound of the pattern she felt underneath.

It's then that Lena's bandaged hand moves up to trace the angle of her jaw, thumb wiping away tears she hadn't even been aware of. She leans into Lena's touch in awe again of how different it feels, how the feeling is all at once so familiar and so new.

Kara lets Lena guide her back onto the bed, the blankets pushed down around them so that there is nothing left between them, and when they finally come together, the kiss is so full of need and want and promise that it leaves its own kind of scar. And in that moment, Kara tries to memorize the feeling of her heart beating underneath Lena's hands. Because her heart is the only part of her that is capable of scarring, the only part of her that reminds her she is strong enough. Strong enough to lose everything, strong enough to love despite of it, strong enough to risk losing even more.

There will still be days when she worries about forgetting her strength.

Days she has to carry the hidden burden of surviving.

But today she doesn't have to bear the weight of feeling nothing.

Today she can be vulnerable and broken and imperfect and be reminded that there is comfort in the pain of living and beauty in the cost of surviving.

Because today she will trace the lines of Lena's scars and she will share the stories of her own. And together they will lean into the feeling of each other's touch and the contours of each other's bodies. And when they finally fall asleep again in each other's arms, they will have found solace in the realization that neither of them is as fragile as they feared.

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Thanks again for reading. Each of these stories is meant as a stand alone but I am hoping that together they can form a picture of Kara's life and how she relates to the world through the relationships she has with the people she loves and the things that she feels.

Please let me know what you think. I am always up for feedback and ideas and comments.


	3. Comfort

Summary: How does Kara find comfort in a world that sometimes feels so numb?

A/N: This is kind of a companion piece to chapter one but instead of exploring how Kara feels the world without her powers, this explains one of the ways she feels it with them.

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 _ **"Touch has a memory" - John Keats**_

Touch has a memory.

It is a reminder of who we are, of the things we've loved, of the things we've lost.

And there are some who would wish to forget it, who would not bear the pain of it.

And there are days when she feels like one of them.

Days when the memories it leaves her with seem too painful or remembering seems too hard.

But she knows those memories are what let her be held and feel it completely, to be loved and know it wholly.

Because she remembers when her hands could find no comfort in the things they touched; when they could only brake what they held.

And she remembers how the same world that was never quiet and never still had felt nothing but numb. And there were times when she wished that it all felt like that, that the colors felt as muted, that the noises felt as faded, but at least they made her feel something —so she tried.

And at first, all she had were the memories of something else. She would feel one world but remember another; would replace the feeling of Eliza's hand with that of her mother's or imagine the roughness of the earth under her fingertips like one of Krypton's moons.

But even before Krypton was lost it was dying, there were no trees, no grass, no waves, and with no memory of them, she could not know them. So, she had to learn to feel them through the colors she saw and the sounds she heard, had to learn them through the vibrations against her skin and the rhythms under her hands.

And eventually, she did. Eventually, every new thing had a memory of its own.

But the hardest things she had to learn weren't the things she had to replace or the things she never knew. The hardest things she had to learn were the things she had to learn again.

To be loved again.

To feel safe again.

To find comfort again.

And even now these are still the hardest to feel, even now there are still moments when she feels numb to them.

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Kara stands still, hands braced against the tile in front of her, water pounding against her back and soaking into her suit. She tries to feel the weight of it, tries to let it calm her. And when she can't, when it doesn't, she closes her eyes and searches for the memory of it.

She remembers herself outside on the roof.

Remembers waking from a nightmare.

Remembers sitting alone with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms folded around herself as she watched the colors of her shirt darken; how she had felt the vibrations of the wind, had heard the sound of the rain that fell hard against the ground, had matched the rhythm of the sounds to the feeling of the rain against her skin until she could feel each drop that fell.

She thinks of that night and remembers the rain until she can feel it again, until the feeling of the rain is replaced by the feeling of the water falling around her now; the way it rolls off her shoulders, the way it lands at her feet, the way it tries to wash away other memories she wants so desperately to forget.

She thinks of the rain and she stands there until the water runs clear again, until every bit of blood and ash is gone, until she hears the door open, until Alex is reaching in to turn it off.

She sees the goosebumps on her sister's skin and wonders how long she must have been standing there, wonders how long Alex has been trying to reach her.

And she hates herself for worrying her again.

Hates herself even more for not being enough again.

She remembers that night on the roof once more.

Remembers Alex coming to find her then too.

Remembers her wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and the comfort of the weight of it as it grew heavy in the rain; how that was the first time Alex ever held her as she cried.

She thinks of Alex and the way her hands hold her now, pulling her forward, pulling her from her nightmares again, and Kara lets herself follow blindly, her body searching for the comfort she remembers but cannot ask for.

She feels the bed give way underneath her as she sits down, Alex's hands guiding her still with the same gentle touch and quiet understanding they always have. She tries to concentrate on every feeling, on every motion. She grabs at the blanket underneath her, looking down at the fabric held tightly in her hands as she tries to find that same feeling of comfort again— to ground herself in it.

She holds on tighter still, hears the faint echo of footsteps and the quiet exchange of words as the sound of Alex's heartbeat is replaced by another.

She looks up and sees Lena in front of her; watches as she slowly reaches out, her hands hesitating as if unsure of where they are needed most, but then, as if knowing what Kara's stillness is asking for, they start to rid her of her ruined suit.

She closes her eyes and imagines the movements of her hands. Focuses until she can feel the faintest ghost of fingers on her skin.

And she wants to tell her not to stop, wants her to keep touching her until she remembers every good thing she can, because even more than the promises made in the words she whispers, it is the feeling of her there with her — the reminder that this world is not a cold dead place — that she needs most.

She feels a hand on her forehead, feels it trace a line down to her cheek, feels it when it's gone again.

She opens her eyes and sees Lena in front of her holding out a worn and faded sweatshirt that still smells like her. She feels her with her as they move together, Lena sliding the fabric over her head as she pulls it down to cover her exposed skin.

Kara looks between her and the pieces of her suit now discarded on the floor and remembers the first time Lena's fingers traced the outline of her family's crest, how they stilled over the place where her heart was, how it felt to be able to feel something so gentle so completely.

Lena helps her with the rest of the clothes, each touch between them lasting just a bit longer until she is sure that she can feel it.

Kara runs her fingers over the edges of the fabric, over the uneven wear and loose threads along the ends of the sleeves and she finds comfort in the familiar feeling. It reminds her of the old clothes that Alex would give her when they were younger, of the first piece of comfort they shared with each other.

Lena takes her hand again guiding her out into the open space of the loft and over to where Alex is waiting. Kara steps forward and into her sister's arms and she thinks that there are things she should say. Apologies she owes her for the risks that she took, for the orders she didn't follow, for the people she still couldn't save. But when she feels the way her hands shake against her back she knows that she isn't the only one who needs something to hold onto, to feel, to remember.

So she doesn't say anything.

And then they are all in each other's arms and she closes her eyes and feels every bit of that moment she can — the pain of loss and the weight of failure; the sound of Alex's heartbeat in her ears and the softness of Lena's skin under her hands.

She feels all of it.

She feels all of it because it had taken so long for her to feel the comfort of others again, to feel it more than as just a memory. And she knows now that to be able to feel anything she has to be willing to feel everything.

* * *

Touch has a memory.

It remembers things words cannot.

Speaks of things that can only be felt to be real.

And sometimes remembering is painful.

And sometimes it is cruel.

And there are some who would wish to forget it, who would not bear the pain of it.

But she is not one of them.

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A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading.

As always, feedback and comments are welcome and appreciated and now that I finally got a Tumblr (a little late I know), you can find me at vox-ex and let me know what you think there too... or just look at the other random things I post :) Feel free to follow, or like, or reblog, or whatever other Tumblr type things one does :)


	4. Searching and Promises

Please accept this new chapter as a little early holiday gift from me to you.

Summary: Kara remembers the first promise she and Alex made each other.

A/N: So, I wrote this after watching Elseworlds and the conversation Kara has with Earth-1 Alex but it's also about how Kara searches for home and how she and Alex first learn how to help each other deal with their loses.

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After everything, Kara stays just a bit longer, lets herself be lost to the world for just a bit longer. She stands alone in the meadow and looks up at the sky and thinks of Argo, of the pieces of herself she found there and the parts of herself she left there. She thinks of her Mother and of Clark and Lois and the family they are about to start. She thinks of who she is now with all the things she's lost and found. She imagines herself younger. When she first looked to the sky. When she was scared of what she would find; when it hurt too much to look at all. But she always looks now, no matter how much it hurts and no matter how scared she is. And it's a promise that took years to keep, for her eyes to see the light that was still there, to be able to find what had once been too dim and too distant.

She stays just a bit longer, lets herself look at the sky just a bit longer, thinks of that promise to herself and then again of another.

* * *

Kara holds on carefully to the glasses in her hand, her fingers running along the contours of the frames as she closes her eyes and imagines what she cannot see. Imagines the sky above her colored in a deep red hue, imagines the light from stars to dim to find. She thinks about all the nights she's spent like this, all the time spent searching and all the mornings after spent trying to forget.

She opens her eyes again and looks up to the darkened sky above her, thinks if somehow she looked hard enough she could see what isn't there. She thinks of the time Jeremiah had taken her out to the cliffs at the edge of the town where the sky was the darkest, remembers the faint glow she had seen through the small lens, remembers the tears that fell down her cheeks and the quiet words he spoke as he held her.

Sometimes she wishes she didn't know where it was. Sometimes she is grateful she can't see it every time she looks up. Maybe it is better this way, maybe it is easier to lose everything at once. Because one day it will truly be gone; it will grow dimmer and dimmer until there is nothing left to see, until there is no light at all left to reach her. And she isn't sure she could take having to watch it happen — if she was strong enough to hold onto the hope of something already lost.

She wraps her arms around herself even though she can't feel the cold air that touches her skin.

"Can you still see it?"

The question is quiet and hesitant, and Kara doesn't know how long Alex had been standing there, doesn't know how she had missed the sound of her footsteps.

She looks down at the glasses in her hand as if somehow they could answer the question for her.

But when she doesn't answer, Alex just sits beside her in the grass, her eyes focused on the sky above them.

She thinks of Jeremiah. She thinks of her parents.

She thinks about how she could stare into the distance and see everything but what she is really looking for.

"I don't, I didn't know how far away it would have been?"

Kara looks at the girl next to her this time as she tries to think of why she's there, tries to remember if they've ever spoken about Krypton like this before.

"No. It- It's still there but..." Her voice trails off as she tries to remind herself that even if she could see it, that it wasn't really there.

Alex shifts beside her, her hands reaching out behind her so she can lean back on them.

"Where would it be?"

Her voice is still quiet, but the words clearer this time.

And Kara still doesn't understand what it was about tonight that made her follow her here, what of all the nights they had both been woken by her nightmares was different now. And maybe it doesn't matter, maybe she's too lost in her own thoughts to find a reason, and maybe she just wants someone to understand. So she doesn't ask. Instead she lifts her hand slowly, her fingers pointing just above the horizon and to the four lone stars that sit there. They were small, almost lost among the expanse of sky that surrounded them, but they contained infinitely more than anyone else could understand.

"Jeremiah, he-he helped me find it once, but it's too dim to see like this."

She shakes her head, reminds herself again that it is easier to forget — that it is better to forget.

"It doesn't matter though."

But Alex looks at her with a kind of understanding Kara has never felt before, like she knows the pain of looking for something you've already lost, and maybe she does, maybe it's what she feels when she thinks about Jeremiah. And she wishes there was something other than their pain they could share.

"I know It isn't the same, but when I was younger we traveled to Japan, which for a six-year-old was like really, really far away, and I missed home so much that I couldn't even sleep, but one night this girl from the village told me about a place that we could go to make a wish. She told me that if I wrote the wish down and left it there in a crack in the wall, then it would come true."

And Kara thinks that maybe this is what they had to share, maybe memories were enough to give.

"Did you go?"

Alex nodded, a slight smile on her face.

"I had never really believed in wishes and things like that before, but I wanted her to be right, I wanted to go home, so I asked her if it was really true and then she took my hand in hers and she wrapped our fingers around each other and said "Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu."

"What did it mean?"

The smile stays on Alex's face. "Roughly? 'Pinky promise, hope to die, swallow a thousand needles if you lie. Finger's cut' and then a small laugh accompanies it. "Which must have seemed way less creepy when I was 6 somehow."

"Did it work? The wish?"

The smile falls slightly then, but there is still something in her voice that promises hopefulness.

"I don't think wishes ever really work the way you want them to. I still woke up in the same place the next morning, but it didn't feel so far away somehow, and when I saw my mom and my dad I didn't feel so scared anymore."

And Kara wonders if she will ever be able to feel like that. If home will never feel as far as it does now.

But then the hopefulness starts to fade from Alex's words too.

"Sometimes I wonder if I could go back there and make another wish if it would be the same. If I could wish for my Dad to come home and even if it didn't bring him back, that maybe it would at least make it hurt less."

And when she looks at Alex this time she sees something of herself; thinks that maybe she would do the same if she could, wants to give them both back that kind of faith.

Kara thinks about that night on the cliff again, of the wish she had been too scared to make because she couldn't stand for it not to come true, and maybe this is her way of asking for another chance, of giving Alex another chance too.

"Jeremiah told me once that if you see a falling star that you could make a wish"

Alex nods.

"When I was little he would wake me up in the middle of the night and take me out to watch for them."

She wonders then if that will be the last part of Krypton to remain — bits of dust known to nothing but the wishes of strangers.

But soon Alex's voice brings her back from her own thoughts.

"It's his birthday today. I don't know why it matters, but it does."

And it starts to make sense to her then. She begins to understand what Alex came here looking for; understands the need for memories and wishes and promises.

"We could make a wish for him if you wanted?"

But Alex seems hesitant again, quieter again.

"You can't really see any falling stars from here."

And for all that Kara wanted them to have more than pain to share, maybe that was exactly what she needed from her now.

"Then we can go somewhere you can."

Alex looks at her with both hope and longing returned.

"Okay."

"Okay." Kara agrees, adding then with a hint of a smile "But you can't tell Eliza I took you flying."

Alex smiles back through the tears that she tries to wipe away and with another quiet laugh takes her hand and wraps their fingers around each other.

"Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu"

And it seems like such a simple thing, but it makes her want to offer something of herself in return, have some promise of her own to give.

"Pahdh khuhp nehv vrreiahv"

And it's the first promise they make each other, spoken in borrowed words old and new, taken from the broken pieces of their pasts. But it's enough to offer somehow; enough to make Kara realize she doesn't need to forget, enough to let Alex know it won't always hurt this much, and enough that more than once it will remind them both who they are.

* * *

In the end, Kara stays just long enough for the sun to rise.

She thinks about that night she and Alex spent under the stars together, of the wishes they both made and the promises they both kept.

She thinks of a different home, of the one she is going back to now, of all the people she loves that are there and of all the promises she's made them too.

And In the end, Kara stays just long enough for the sun to rise, but it's just long enough to remember what it is she really searching for.

* * *

Let me know what you think by dropping some a comments below or come find me on Tumblr vox-ex too.

As always thanks for reading.

A/N: "Pahdh khuhp nehv vrreiahv" roughly translates to "Make I a finger vow" in Krytonese (translated with help from but any mistakes are my own)


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